


The Gold Standard

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Aging, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, OH THE HUMANITY ETC, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23053498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: Revelations ensue; everyone survives.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 41
Kudos: 836





	The Gold Standard

**Author's Note:**

> A smidge of fluff from the other day, inspired by real events (except for the fact that I'm extremely vain and definitely, definitely noticed before anybody else). XD
> 
> Hope it makes you smile! ♥

When Alphonse, freshly returned from a wildly successful stint of diplomacy in Xing, started squinting at Ed across the dinner table, Roy knew that the secret that he’d been fastidiously keeping for several months was about to get blown sky-high.

Cautiously, Roy put his fork down, sat back in his chair, and braced himself.

Alphonse didn’t keep him waiting for more than a handful of seconds, which Roy supposed he appreciated. If the evening was destined to get shot to shit, they might as well get it over with.

“Brother,” Al said, “you’re going gray.”

Ed, who had heretofore been absorbed in rearranging his food into a diorama while explaining some arcane research ritual, blinked like he’d been struck around the beautiful head. “Huh?”

Al folded his hands on the table. Roy managed not to wince. “I said, ‘Brother, you’re—’”

“I heard you,” Ed said. His brain tended to rewind and catch up with a mechanical regularity reminiscent of a reloading shotgun. “But that’s bullshit. Van Fuckoff was—”

“He had a name,” Al said.

“I know,” Ed said. “I just said it. He was four hundred and didn’t go gray. Why the hell would I do it at twenty-nine?”

“Gee,” Al said, leaning his chin on his hand and his elbow on the tabletop as he widened his eyes. “I haven’t the slightest idea, Brother. I’d say ‘Perhaps it has something to do with all that pent-up rage’, but you’ve never pent up a single thing in your entire life.”

“I can’t tell if that was a weird compliment,” Ed said, “so I’m just gonna assume it was your way of saying that I have healthy outlets or some shit.”

“It could be the constant stream of self-imposed stressors,” Al said. Before Ed had even finished scoffing, Al had turned his luminous eyes on Roy. Was it Doomsday o’clock already? Oh, joy. “But he _is_ going gray, isn’t he, Roy?”

“That’s the other thing,” Ed said while Roy rearranged words very delicately in the back of his throat. Ed jabbed a finger at him. “ _He_ only has, like, four gray hairs. He counts them.”

“I do not,” Roy said.

“You do so,” Ed said.

“I do not,” Roy said.

“Only ’cause your eyesight’s going,” Ed said. “Which is the whole point. If anybody’s going gray, it should be you.”

Al sighed. “Brother, I hate to break it to you, but zero of the laws governing human existence are on your side right now.”

“Don’t lie to your brother,” Ed said. “You _love_ breaking shit like that to me. This is probably the highlight of your year.” He leaned back in his chair, folding both arms across his chest, and raised his chin defiantly. “Tough cookies, Al. You’re objectively wrong.”

Al turned a very long-suffering expression on Roy. “Well?”

“Don’t look at me,” Roy said. “I like being married. And I like being alive.”

Al swiveled the long-suffering expression over to Ed.

Ed’s jaw had dropped.

“You _are_ going blind, Mustang,” Ed said. “Forget this weird gray-hair obsession-thing you’ve got going on, Al; we gotta get Roy to the hospital and then the optometrist and then—”

Al’s arm darted out across the table so swiftly that Roy, who had expected violence since the beginning of this conversation, barely even saw it move.

He certainly did see Ed clutching a hand to his temple and screwing up his face. “ _Ow_! Holy shit, Al! What the fuck is wrong with you today?”

Wordlessly, Al held up the strand of hair that he’d just appropriated, suspending it directly next to his own bangs for contrast.

The one that he’d yanked out of Ed’s head was utterly, entirely, unmistakably white.

Ed stared in disbelief.

Ed continued staring for long enough that Al’s arm apparently got tired, because Al lowered his hand and the hair to the table, where it coiled up forlornly next to Al’s napkin as if it wanted to apologize.

First Ed said, “Genetics is fuckin’ _weird_.”

And then Ed said, “Hang the fuck on—”, leapt up from the table, and darted off down the hall.

Al and Roy gave chase immediately, of course. Dinner could wait; the dishes could wait; Ed had moved, and they followed. If that wasn’t the story of both of their lives, Roy wasn’t sure what was.

Ed was, of course, pushed up onto his tiptoes to stare at himself in the mirror. He usually ignored mirrors in favor of committing his attention to ‘useful’ things, which in retrospect was probably how this had escaped his notice for so long.

“Okay,” Ed said. “So… Don’t take this the wrong way, Al, but this has got to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.”

“That’s fair,” Al said calmly.

“No, it’s _not_ ,” Roy said, because someone had to stop them before they sarcasmed their way clear into a different plane of existence. He took a breath and stepped up next to Ed to meet the accusatory eyes in the mirror. “Honestly, I think it’s wonderful, in a way.” He lifted a hand to trail his fingertips through the end of Ed’s ponytail. “Silver and gold again. You’ve always been made of precious metals.”

Ed blinked at him in the mirror for a second.

Then Ed fought down the slightest, faintest trace of a smile and said, “That’s _disgusting_.”

“Seconded,” Al said. “Sorry, Roy. Democratic majority.”

“You two have a hive mind,” Roy said. “That doesn’t count.”

“I can’t believe this,” Al said. “Hive minds don’t get a vote in this country? What kind of a sham democracy is this? I’m going back to Xing.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ed said, turning to lean against the edge of the sink and cross his arms again. “No point hanging around here anymore. The only reason Roy fucks me is ’cause he’s got a thing for blonds.”

The silence resounded.

Roy was fairly certain that he heard something pop, shrivel, and die inside of his own brain.

Then Ed had to lean on the sink for a different reason, which was that he was laughing so hard that his whole body shook.

“I _had_ to!” he said. “Holy shit, both of your faces—I wish I had a camera!”

“I wish I had a brother,” Al said. “I did, once, a long time ago. But I’ve disowned him now.”

“You started it,” Ed said.

Al gave Roy the look again.

“Well,” Roy said, “you… did.”

Al threw both hands up in the air and stalked off down the hall, saying something rather unflattering about politics and where his vote was going next time.

Ed put both arms up in the air, too, but only so that he could loop them around Roy’s neck and twine his fingers into Roy’s not-especially-gray hair.

“Jeez,” Ed said. “Don’t know where he learned that dramatic shit from.” He gave Roy a more assessing look. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Roy thumbed a silver-threaded section of Ed’s bangs off of his forehead, after which it immediately bounced back. “Because it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ed said. “People’re gonna think I’m robbing the cradle.”

Apparently Roy was making another photo-worthy face, because Ed laughed so delightedly again that Roy just couldn’t help joining him.


End file.
